The Witcher 3 Alchemy System

[Kinley]

Mutagens - you drink them before combat and they remain active until you disable the effect during another meditation. High toxicity.

Potions - drinkable in combat, has multiple uses (or limited number of potions per encounter, not sure). Low toxicity.

That's how the system worked last time we heard about it. If anything changed since then, no idea.

 

[sfinx]

I think this is the part of game when devs can cooperate with fans .. just little demonstration there would be probably time to "fix" something..

For me - I would do that this way:

• only potions can be drinked (I am talking about fight, not about drinking sessions with Yarpen )
• mutagen means permanent improvement ... they should be rare and for example there can be some fun with combination ... stronger/weaker mutagens (more weaker = one stronger) or combination of abilities (defence, poison resistance ... and again combination or two of same sort to get bonus,...)
• heavy/light potion system: you will have two kinds of potions:
  • - weaker, usual p.: cat, swallow,... >> you can make them from herbs/common ingredients, low toxicity, weaker impact, you can drink them any time
  • - stronger, rare p. >> more difficult to find ingredients, maybe higher toxicity, stronger impact, you can drink them only before fight (meditation,...)
• impact of potions comes immediately and there will be normal system - time of effect

This is just my idea, how I would do that, but I don't want to criticize TW3 system since I did not see it yet, but I am just afraid it will be too late, when game will be already out.
FAQ ... Yes, I have faith in CDPR, but I also consider this as part of the game which we can decide together with no need to hide it until game will be finished.

 

[Kinley]

Well it's already kinda late anyways since the game was announced to be feature locked.

 

[sfinx]

damn .. sooo long post

 

[Maerd.298]

There's a good saying: "Don't fix what's not broken". And another one: "Betterness is an enemy of goodness". CDPR fixed TW1 system and made it worse. The only thing TW1 system needed is a minor tuning here and there and, may be a few additional potion effects. Instead we got new and mostly useless system in TW2. It's not impossible, probably to make alchemy better than in TW1 with radical changes but very unlikely.

 

[frivolousam]

There's a good saying: "Don't fix what's not broken". And another one: "Betterness is an enemy of goodness".

F those sayings. Trying to be better even if it leads to failures sometimes is the way else we'd end up with the same game with different story every time. There is always a saying which contradicts with another one.

Here you go http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/improvement.html

 

[Maerd.298]

F those sayings. Trying to be better even if it leads to failures sometimes is the way else we'd end up with the same game with different story every time.

Then your life is mostly a failure if you follow this principle. Continuous success is based on the perpetual improvement upon the previous success not on reinvention of the wheel all the time. The plot of the game must be new and creative all the time but the mechanics of the new iteration of the previous game, if successful, should be an improvement base on previous iteration. It's easy enough to drop the failed experiment on the alpha stages.

 

[frivolousam]

I'm not saying change everything and CDPR's certainly not trying to change everything but there is always room for improvement. Was this another saying? Well better to cut it here this won't help anything.

 

[schinderhannes.999]

'Practicum in Advanced Alchemy' sounds promising.
Advanced as in being able to 'experiment' again with different ingredient ratios or swapping out ingredients for different compositions of the alchemical components contained within, and things like that?
Would be neat.

 

[BlackWolf500.298]

'Practicum in Advanced Alchemy' sounds promising.
Advanced as in being able to 'experiment' again with different ingredient ratios or swapping out ingredients for different compositions of the alchemical components contained within, and things like that?
Would be neat.

Damn I hope you are right.

Also, WHERE THE HELL do you get those pictures from? Did I miss a gameplay video or what?
Can you tell me the source?

 

[schinderhannes.999]

Spoiler

[video=youtube;D-kBExyNm_Q]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-kBExyNm_Q[/video]

---------- Updated at 04:14 PM ----------

With @Marcin Momot & Co being in an unusually talkative mood today - how about clarifying the issue for which this very thread was initially created, once and for all?

 

[karl_hummer]

In this interview, the author states that the alchemy system is like it was before (in other words, no auto-refilling, so you need ingredients all the time)

http://www.witchersite.pl/component/content/article/26-news-wiedzmin-3/1132-wiedzmin-3-juz-gralismy.html

 

[BlackWolf500.298]

In this interview, the author states that the alchemy system is like it was before (in other words, no auto-refilling, so you need ingredients all the time)

http://www.witchersite.pl/component/content/article/26-news-wiedzmin-3/1132-wiedzmin-3-juz-gralismy.html

And in this the opposite is said:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-01-26-the-witcher-3-wild-hunt

The flow never falters and the pace remains good, making the open world more appealing as a result. Take potions, for instance: you now need only assemble them once before they refill automatically every time you meditate. That's a nice, time-saving touch, and in one assured stroke it makes the alchemy skill tree attractive again.

Maybe you can choose between those 2 options now?`(I HOPE so, really, because if it is auto-refill I'm going to rage)

 

[Vigilance.492]

Unless @karl_hummer knows Polish, he could have misunderstood the google translate. We don't yet have a proper translation of the Witchersite article.

Frankly I'm prepping myself for disappointment as far as Alchemy is concerned. My only last hope is that perhaps it might be tied to difficulty, like if you play on easy/normal everything auto-refills, but hard/dark it doesn't, although I still think it's bad design on any difficulty.

 

[Ljesnjanin]

Take potions, for instance: you now need only assemble them once before they refill automatically every time you meditate.

What is this suppose to mean? We can make 1 swallow at the begining of the game and use it until the end?
i sincerely hope that is not the case...

 

[frivolousam]

What is this suppose to mean? We can make 1 swallow at the begining of the game and use it until the end?
i sincerely hope that is not the case...

I hope that's the case eurogamer backs my hope. Why make the same system where most of the players haven't used/didn't want to bother using efficiently or used it to create various potions which stayed in the inventory till the end?

It's more like you create one swallow and it refills every time you meditate then you can upgrade the swallow using herbs to lv2-3.. if what devs said earlier is accountable.

 

[BlackWolf500.298]

What is this suppose to mean? We can make 1 swallow at the begining of the game and use it until the end?
i sincerely hope that is not the case...

Yeah I hope that too

I hope that's the case eurogamer backs my hope. Why make the same system where most of the players haven't used/didn't want to bother using efficiently or used it to create various potions which stayed in the inventory till the end?

It's more like you create one swallow and it refills every time you meditate then you can upgrade the swallow using herbs to lv2-3.. if what devs said earlier is accountable.

But it makes NO SENSE in the lore. "Upgrading potions to different levels" sounds nice if you use it in a way that you can use alternate special ingredients or additional ingredients that make the potion more powerful, but it refilling every time you meditate is ridiculous.

Okay, you know what? I don't mind if it is only on easy or normal difficulty or if you can choose to do manually (like for example the "Difficult QTE's" option in TW2 EE), that's fine. But if it's just generally that way I will not use alchemy again unless it is absolutely needed. Making and taking the potions was most of the fun for me. It just felt immersive...

There is another theory by some people who observed some things from previous videos. They say it might be the case that it is something like this:

Every potion has 3 uses. If you only use 1 or 2 it will refill when meditating using less ingredients than you would normally need. If you use all 3 of them you have to make the potion anew with the same number of ingredients you had to use the first time. That would be... "acceptable" for me.

But auto-refill can go to hell for all I care....

 

[Ljesnjanin]

@zatara56 post from another thread:

Conflicting information according to the http://www.witchersite.pl/ the auto refill is gone, they scraped it and it's back to collecting ingredients to resupply.

The exact quote "Jeśli chodzi o alchemię, składniki musimy zbierać i potrzebujemy ich cały czas – z auto-uzupełniania zrezygnowano'' which roughly translates to "In regards to alchemy, we have to collect the ingredients and we need the all the time - auto-refill was dropped"

Thanks...

And thank Melitele for that....

 

[BlackWolf500.298]

@zatara56 post from another thread:

Thanks...

And thank Melitele for that....

How new is that news and why does the guy in the article make this comment about autp-refilling then? Is it an earlier build?

We seriously NEED clarity, I have been saying this for months. Just one of the devs (@ Marcin) come in and state right here "that's how it is" so we know it once and for all.

 

[Tzirael]

@zatara56 post from another thread:

Thanks...

And thank Melitele for that....

Just to confirm, I am Polish so this isn't a google translate mistranslation!